I cannot overstate the degree of deceptiveness, underhandedness and spitefulness of this company. They lied about the cars features (it lacked the advertised rear parking sensors, remote locking and sat nav, plus others), they refused to immediately return our £400 deposit when we wanted to walk away, and after we finally bought the car, handed over the cash and sign the documentation, we discovered they had added a £95 ‘admin fee’ to the bill without making us aware at any point. They also wouldn’t give us one of the two car keys, not to mention other very serious issues. I’m even anxious about posting this review given I know they have my address. Below I have tried to summarise the extensive troubles I experienced with them as briefly as possible.
Full review: Before buying the car my father and I placed down a £400 deposit with United Motors (with the aim to purchase on inspection). We then travelled over 100 miles to see what we believed to be a top spec car. What we got was the following.
-- False Advertising: Car was specified as having rear parking sensors. It didn’t have any sensors.
-- False Advertising: Navigation system. No navigation system of any kind came with the car.
-- False Advertising: Advertised as having remote locking. Once again it did not have this either. While the car has this feature installed, neither of the two keys have remote locking functionality.
-- False Advertising: The car was originally advertised as the 2003 model, however this was changed on the website to 2001 soon after. We placed the deposit at this point, only to arrive on the day to discover it was the 2000 model.
-- False Advertising: Mileage advertised at 26, 000. It was actually 29, 000.
-- False Advertising: Advertised with cassette player. Had no cassette player.
-- False Advertising: Full Toyota Service history. It didn’t; looking through the service history book revealed only the first 6 out of 11 services were performed by Toyota.
-- False Advertising: It is worth noting that the car was also advertised using false photo’s. We phoned prior to placing a deposit to ask if these photos used were of the actual car we’d be seeing, to which we were guaranteed that they were. Not only were these profession pictures that clearly weren’t of the specific car advertised, but the images of the interior revealed it to be the automatic version, not the manual advertised!
So we had travelled 100 miles to see a car that lacked £200&-pound;300 worth of features; if we’d known this to begin with we definitely wouldn’t have travelled to see it. Furthmore none of these missing features were pointed out to us at any point, we only discovered them by checking over the car and questioning the dealer. They refused to lower the price, saying the missing features wouldn’t cost much to install...
-- False estimate. The dealer argued that the cost to purchase and have installed all missing features would be circa £115, which he later changed to £90. We only discovered later that installing remote locking alone would cost well over £150.
Again we tried to get them to budge on price but they wouldn’t. We explained that if we left empty handed we would...
-- Potentially lose £100 via travel expenses. The cost of my dad and I travelling back via train and taxi would be around £100. They argued at one stage that we might as well contribute that money towards the cost of the car. While appearing logical, it would mean that if we ‘contributed’ that potential £100 loss to the car instead of travel, we’d still be £100 worse off. The dealership should never have placed us in that position, let alone used it as some kind of manipulative bargaining chip.
Given their complete lack of honesty and extensive lying about the car, we decided to call it quits and head back home empty handed. So we asked for out £400 deposit back...
-- Refusal to return £400 deposit. They said our deposit could not be returned immediately because their ‘manager’ wasn’t in??? We’d have to return home and ring the manager the next day. Given everything that had come before, plus them now holding our £400 hostage, we had no faith that we would ever see our £400 again, at least not without some major hassle or fuss on our part. One last time we bargained with them; I wanted £200 off, they agreed £100, so we settled on that. We went to the office, handed over the full amount (minus deposit) in cash, and signed completed the documentation.
-- £95 Admin fee! They then demanded we now hand over a further £95 for admin costs otherwise we were not allowed to leave with the car. At no point was this bought to our attention in any form. We looked back at the paper work and realised that indeed they had included an extra £95 to the bill without ever notifying us. It was foolishness on our part not to have thoroughly read the documentation before signing, but after we had agreed a price AND handed over our cash, we assumed it was a done deal. This was the most conniving, underhanded and potentially illegal tactic we never expected even given our horrendous experience.
-- Included second set of keys as part of the deal. At one point during our argument instigated by the admin fee the dealer said we could have the second pair of keys as part of the deal. Wait what??? If you purchase a car the buyer is given all the keys, its not an optional extra to be given at the dealers discretion! At no point does the dealership ever hang onto a set of car keys that they neither own nor can do anything with. WTF!
Just as we were leaving they asked for one of the keys back (the Toyota one was taken, not the non-Toyota copy) so that they could take the registration plate out of the car. My father and I were then separated briefly before we finally got in the car and left. It was only after leaving that we realised that they had not returned the key to us. I’d assumed they returned them to my dad, and my dad thought vice-versa. Too late to turn around, I called them the next day...
-- Dealership would not send the key back! I phoned them twice. First time I was promised it would be sent back, second and third time I was told it currently couldn’t be found but would be sent back as soon as it was. A few weeks went by, nothing. I then emailed them three times, zero response. No contact back, no keys (Key worth about £150). (There is another buyer/reviewer at ComplaintsBoard.com who purchased a car from United Motors with two sets of keys but was then only given one at sale; he also shares his fears that this presents for him a very real security risk.)
-- Security wheel nut and towing eye missing. A few days after purchase we also discovered that these two tools were missing from the boot. The towing eye could be replaced, but without the matching bolt for the wheels it would essentially be impossible for us to ever be able to change a wheel. Yaaaaay!
-- Key and towing eye mailed to us (weeks after car purchase) only after they were threatened with further costs! We sent the dealership a letter explaining that unless they returned the key, wheel nut and towing eye within 7 days we would replace them ourselves and forward them the invoice for reimbursement. Well, they returned two out of the three, best we could hope for I guess. How malicious does a company have to be to do something like this.
-- No master key. In trying to install remote locking our nearest Toyota garage said it would be impossible for them to do so without the master key (the original that came with the car), and that the two we had we merely slave duplicate keys. So now we have a car with remote locking that has no capability of being locked remotely. Hurray!
And thus ends the most miserable and draining consumer experience of my life.
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